News & Views

Cannes Lions / Branded Content and Entertainment Award Winners

There was no Grand Prix awarded in Branded Content and Entertainment's third outing at Cannes Lions, but that wasn't to say it was a poor year for the category. The jury selected eleven entries for Gold Lions (three of which went to Chipotle's The Scarecrow, via CAA, Los Angeles), with a range of narratives, formats and purposes demonstrating the diversity of the practice.

Jury president, Doug Scott, president, OgilvyEntertainment, explained that there was ultimately no single piece that demonstrated 'exceptional craft, or digital, or social, or other elements necessary' to elevate it to a Grand Prix. He did, however, point out that the Gold winners could be taken as a body of work to 'illuminate to the industry as to what great work is and should be aspired to in our agencies.'

There was also Gold awarded to Lemz Amsterdam's creation, Sweetie, for Terre Des Hommes which tackled the demand problems of webcam sex tourism. Samsung's Oscar Selfie, delivered by 72andSunny, Los Angeles, PMKBNC, New York and Edelman Digital, New York picked up the last.

Given the lack of a top prize winner, the jury avoided discussing specific examples and instead focused on their deliberations and discussions over the time they've been together. Scott explained that an exploration of what could be considered 'branded content' for the purposes of the Lions had been central to those conversations.

'For us, content at large is marketing so good that you don’t know it’s marketing. It’s stories, it's engaging, it's something you invite,' he said. 'You want to share it with others. It travels. Good advertising will travel, [whereas] content is something where one will lean back, where you escape your reality, where you take [it] in.

'We don’t want it defined by length, format or medium,' Scott continued. 'We want to leave it open to the community to apply. We want to look at the audience and check that it is content to them. It’s the brand and audience coming together.'